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By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 8, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the eighth day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

Today marked the first preseason scrimmage work during the fall camp season where players were allowed to tackle to the ground for the first time since camp practice had opened in late July. With less than three weeks before Illinois hosts Wyoming on Aug. 27 (3 p.m. CST, BTN), the coaches used this as one of the eight allowed days in full pads before the season opener.

By Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys.com Director of Recruiting 

August 8, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Prep Hoops)

In November 2021, Illinois received an oral commitment from Morez Johnson, a 6-foot-9, 200-pound power forward from St. Rita High School and the Meanstreets AAU basketball program. 

A lot of fans did not really know what they were getting in this commitment, other than a big kid from the state of Illinois who plays with another giant in James Brown, who is also 6-foot-9.

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert

August 8, 2022

I’ve broken down the offensive and defensive recruits in the 2023 class for Illinois, but the transfer portal could be even more important.

By Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys.com Director of Recruiting 

August 6, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy MLive.com)

The Fighting Illini men’s basketball team had some major talent on campus recently, sophomore-to-be Trey McKenney, a 6-foot-2 shooting guard from Orchard Lake, Michigan. 

McKenney is a four-star recruit, but listed by ESPN as the 19th overall prospect in the class of 2025. Illinois was able to get the top prospect on campus and did a wonderful job of selling the Illinois program and what they can do for the star guard. 

His dad John McKenney came away in awe of his time spent in Champaign.

Matt Stevens, IlliniGuys Staff Writer

August 6, 2022

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the seventh day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert

August 6, 2022

North Carolina is known as a very solid recruiting program.

Illinois executes its first commitment flip of the 2023 […]

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 5, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the sixth day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

It was again simply a 15-minute viewing period (with a quick 5-minute introduction by Bielema) but here’s the quick notes:

Friday morning’s two-hour practice session was a day where the players were in full pads today on the grass practice fields just outside the Smith Family Football Center and it is anticipated the Illini will conduct its first scrimmage at Memorial Stadium. I don’t have details on the scrimmage schedule but I assume it’ll be closed to the public and media.

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert August 5, […]

After leaving Southern California, Sean Snyder has found a […]

After voting to end a proposal in February to […]

By IlliniGuys Staff

August 4, 2022

The summer workout period is officially over and IlliniGuys Insider/Analyst Brad Sturdy gives his evaluations and hands out some end-of-summer awards.  Find out who performed the best and a couple of surprise nuggets that we haven't heard before.

Illinois assistant coach Geoff Alexander just arrived back in Champaign this week after watching French 2022 commit Zacharie Perrin shine in FIBA U-18 Europeans Championships. 

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

August 3, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Zacharie Perrin's Instagram page)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The only absent member of the 2022-23 Illinois men’s basketball roster still has some work to do overseas.

Just over a month after verbally pledging his services to Illinois’ 2022 recruiting class, Zacharie Perrin - a 17-year-old international star player from France, is currently in Izmir, Turkey attempting to lead his home country to its first gold medal in the FIBA U-18 European Championships since 2016. 

Perrin, a 6-foot-11, 220 pound forward, doesn't turn 18 years old until the end of this month, which is around the time Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said Wednesday he expects the Frenchmen to arrive on campus.

“The FIBA tournament will end this weekend and then he’ll get a couple of weeks off before we expect to see him arrive for the start of school,” Underwood said. 

Illinois will open the 2022 season in a transfer portal era with two quarterbacks (Syracuse transfer Tommy DeVito and Art Sitkowski) who have over 10 career starts in their college football career.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 3, 2022

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- While winter conditioning drills were being completed, Illinois head coach Bret Bielema sought out an opinion from inside his locker room on his top two quarterbacks.

While walking the halls of the Smith Center facility, Bielema nearly bumped into star wide receiver Isaiah Williams and posed the question immediately about the newly arrived Syracuse transfer Tommy DeVito.

“When Tommy was around him and throwing to him on their own but I don’t think we were yet in spring drills, I bumped into Isaiah and said ‘What do you think of Tommy?,” said Bielema said.

The question makes sense for several reasons - the least of which being Williams had made the transition from quarterback, a position he’d played his whole life up to the spring drills leading into the 2021 season, and the chemistry between QB1 and the leading receiver needs to be there.

Why Illinois outside linebacker coach Kevin Kane thinks Seth Coleman emerging early in 2021 but then finding the bench late will translate to an exciting 2022 campaign for the Illini pass rusher. 

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 3, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Nikos Frazier/Journal & Courier)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- In eyes of his position coach, the best thing that happened to Seth Coleman last season was experiencing the joy success and then low feeling of being benched. 

As an inexperienced 235-pound pass rusher trying to make the transition from an undersized defensive end in Lovie Smith’s 4-3 scheme to a perfect body type at stand-up, outside linebacker for new Illinois defensive coordinator Ryan Walters’ odd-man front system, Coleman found a way to make an instant impact in 2021. 

With the graduation departure of two senior starters (Owen Carney Jr. and Isaiah Gay), it is Coleman, a redshirt sophomore entering his fourth season of college football, who instantly finds himself inheriting a leadership role in the meeting room of outside linebacker coach Kevin Kane. It is the outside linebacker spot that arguably has the most questions entering a 2022 campaign where the Illini return all but three starters from last year’s season-finale victory over Northwestern.